_THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION_
"What is Romance? The world well lost for an ides." I know no better
definition; and Romance in this sense is perpetually illustrated
in the history of the Church. The highest instance-save One--is,
of course, the instance of the Martyrs. When in human history has
Romance been more splendidly displayed than when the young men
and maidens of Pagan Rome suffered themselves to be flung to the
wild beasts of the arena sooner than abjure the religion of the
Cross? And close on the steps of the Martyrs follow the Confessors,
the "Martyrs-Elect," as Tertullian calls them, who, equally willing
to lay down their lives, yet denied that highest privilege, carried
with them into exile and imprisonment the horrible mutilations
inflicted by Severus and Licinius. In days nearer our own time,
"many a tender maid, at the threshold of her young life, has gladly
met her doom, when the words that accepted Islam would have made her
in a moment a free and honoured member of a dominant community."
Then there is the Romance of the Hermitage and the Romance of the
Cloister, illustrated by Antony in the Egyptian desert, and Benedict
in his cave among the Latin hills, and Francis tending the leper
by the wayside of Assisi. In each of these cases, as in thousands
more, the world was well lost for an idea.
The world is well lost--and supremely well lost--by the Missionary,
whatever be his time or country or creed. Francis Xavier lost it well
when he made his response to the insistent question: "What shall
it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul?" Henry Martyn lost it well when, with perverse foolishness
as men accounted it, he sacrificed the most brilliant prospects
which a University offers to preach and fail among the heathen,
and to die at thirty, forsaken and alone. John Coleridge Patterson
lost it well when, putting behind him all the treasures of Eton and
Oxford, and powerful connexions and an opulent home, he went out
to spread the light of the Gospel amid the isles of the Pacific,
and to meet his death at the hands of the heathen whom he loved
and served.
These, indeed, are the supreme Romances of Renunciation, but others
there are, which, though less "high and heroical," are not less
Teal and not less instructive. The world was well lost (though for
a cause which is not mine) by the two thousand ministers who on
"Black Bartholomew," in the year 1662, renounced their benefices
in the Established Church sooner than accept a form of worship
which their conscience disallowed. And yet again the world was
gloriously lost by the four hundred ministers and licentiates of
the Church of Scotland who, in the great year of the Disruption,
sacrificed home and sanctuary land subsistence rather than compromise
the "Headship of Christ over His own house."
One more instance I must give of these heroic losses, and in giving
it I recall a name, famous and revered in my young days, but now,
I suppose, entirely forgotten--the name of the Honble. and Revd.
Baptist Noel (1798-1873). "His more than three-score years and
ten were dedicated, by the day and by the hour, to a ministry not
of mind but of spirit; his refined yet vigorous eloquence none who
listened to it but for once could forget; and, having in earliest
youth counted birth and fortune, and fashion but loss 'for Christ,'
in later age, at the bidding of the same conscience, he relinquished
even the church which was his living and the pulpit which was his
throne, because he saw danger to Evangelical truth in State alliance,
and would go forth at the call of duty, he knew not and he cared
not whither."
After these high examples of the Romance of Renunciation, it may
seem rather bathetic to cite the instance which has given rise to
this chapter. Yet I cannot help feeling that Mr. William Temple,
by resigning the Rectory of St. James's, Piccadilly, in order to
devote himself to the movement for "Life and Liberty," has established
a strong claim on the respect of those who differ from him. I state
on p. 198 my reason for dissenting from Mr. Temple's scheme. To my
thinking, it is just one more attempt to stave off Disestablishment.
The subjection of the Church to the State is felt by many to be an
intolerable burden. Mr. Temple and his friends imagine that, while
retaining the secular advantages of Establishment and endowment,
they can obtain from Parliament the self-governing powers of a
spiritual society. I doubt it, and I do not desire it. My own ideal
is Cavour's--the Free Church in the Free State; and all such schemes
as Mr. Temple's seem to me desperate attempts to make the best of
two incompatible worlds. By judicious manipulation our fetters
might be made to gall less painfully, but they would be more securely
riveted than ever. So in this new controversy Mr. Temple stands on
one side and I on the other; but this does not impair my respect
for a man who is ready to "lose the world for an idea"--even though
that idea be erroneous and Impracticable.
To "lose the world" may seem too strong a phrase for the occasion,
but it is not in substance inappropriate. Mr. Temple has all the
qualifications which in our Established Church lead on to fortune.
He has inherited the penetrating intelligence and the moral fervour
which in all vicissitudes of office and opinion made his father
one of the conspicuous figures of English life. Among dons he was
esteemed a philosopher, but his philosophy did not prevent him
from being an eminently practical Head Master. He is a vigorous
worker, a powerful preacher, and the diligent rector of an important
parish. Of such stuff are Bishops made. There is no shame in the
wish to be a Bishop, or even an Archbishop, as we may see by the
biographies of such prelates as Wilberforce and Tait and Magee,
and in the actual history of some good men now sitting on Episcopal
thrones. But Mr. Temple has proved himself a man capable of ideals,
and has given that irrefragable proof of sincerity which is afforded
by the voluntary surrender of an exceptionally favoured position.
That the attempt to which he is now devoting himself may come to
naught is my earnest desire; and then, when the Church, at length
recognizing the futility of compromise, acquires her complete,
severance from the secular power, she may turn to him for guidance
in the use of her new-born freedom.